Following hot on the heels of Storm Doris, Storm Ewen provided Ireland, north west England, Wales and eastern Scotland with further severe weather including winds of up to 70 mph in exposed areas by the sea and the potential for snow storms.
Thanks to the UK’s fastest growing external maintenance and commercial landscaping company, Ground Control, disruption throughout these storms has been kept to a minimum thanks to a combination of innovative weather tracking technology and rapid response capabilities.
Working with organisations including Network Rail, UK Power Networks, WPD and Electricity North West to name a few, Ground Control has attended more than 80 sites in the last few days, clearing hundreds of trees and associated debris to ensure customers’ networks remained connected and sites stayed open and safe at all times.
Stephen Amison, Contracts Director at Ground Control, commented: “It’s been a very busy few days! Our teams have been cutting away trees that were lying across the A6, to enable traffic and WPD to access a fault.
"In Derby, Contract Delivery Manager Vince Storey and his team were still on the road at 2.30am on Friday morning following technicians from fault to fault in order to restore power. There are many other stories just like this where our teams have been on the road helping customers to minimise the impact of these storms. It has been a sterling effort by everyone concerned.”
Storm Ewen, which was named by the Irish Met Éireann, is the fifth storm to hit the UK in as many months. In addition to this latest storm, the Met Office is warning that temperatures are likely to plunge through to the middle of March, causing further road and rail disruption for commuters. According to Ground Control, the early warning weather service not only helps customers to reduce the impact of storms on their operations, but importantly allows businesses to plan ahead and decrease exposure to damage.
Peter Allen, Director of Arboriculture and Rail Services for Ground Control, adds: “Using the latest in technologies, we are not only able to continually track the weather, but also plan ahead. This is important as it enables us to allocate both resources and people with the highest degree of accuracy, speed and efficiency, and therefore direct hundreds of teams nationally at any one time based on customer demand.
“Throughout the storms, we have had teams on standby to ensure we could be on any given site rapidly. Teams who were already working on planned works have been redirected as the storms progressed across the country.
"From Liverpool and Chester, through to Stoke, Lichfield and Birmingham down to Watford, our teams have been on hand to keep the road and rail networks clear of disruption. With the cold snap adding to concerns over the next few weeks, we will continue to monitor and assign resources where they are required quickly and efficiently.”
